When describing where he lives to a table of tourists: "Want to come visit? It's really easy to get to. Just drive through the shantytown, make a right at the meth lab, and you'll see a 15-year-old girl who got pregnant by an out-of-town businessman, then ask for her brother. That's me," says Johnson.

Life imitates art? Art imitates life? (No this is not good for tourism, but we need to deal with the reality by cutting welfare, throwing criminals in prison, and enacting school vouchers.... Meanwhile we will need a 'pride in tourism' movement.)

House Bill 215 would set a $50,000 limit on corporate donations to political action committees, which then donate money to candidates. Currently, such corporate contributions are unlimited because a previous $1,000 cap is not being enforced while a 2007 Maui court case is pending.

WAILUKU - Looming Maui County budget restrictions could result in the Maui Police Department losing dozens of positions and cutting back crime-prevention programs such as school resource officers, police Chief Tom Phillips said last week. Phillips' comments came as U.S. Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka announced that $10.7 million in federal stimulus money would come to Hawaii for anti-crime projects, with (a piddling) $274,649 earmarked for Maui County. (But millions for food stamps....)

A 25-cent hike in bus fares could cost bus riders about $5 million a year, but wouldn't be enough to close the $50 million gap in the city's 2010 budget. Even with a fare hike the city's TheBus subsidy is only expected to drop by about $2 million, to $125 million in fiscal 2010. (And how much is Rail going to cost?)

Yamashita's killing came some three months after Fauatea was taken from the Hawai'i State Hospital in Kane'ohe to serve a six-day sentence at O'ahu Community Correctional Center. He was freed from OCCC on Nov. 29.

Seitz has represented people in other situations where there were serious consequences for the mentally ill or for people who ended up hurt by them, such as the 2005 case of a man who stabbed his mother, nearly killing her, while on release from the Hawai'i State Hospital.

Advertiser: Fauatea was released from the O'ahu Community Correctional Center Nov. 29 after serving a brief sentence for harassment. The Department of Public Safety told The Advertiser that it had no "paperwork" to indicate he should have remained in custody, but a psychiatric evaluation six weeks earlier indicated he needed "at least another 60 days of treatment." Whether state authorities had all the information they needed at key points in the case, and whether his transfer in and out of custody was handled correctly —through court appearances, medical treatment and prison sentences — is not clear.

Marshall, who represented Windward Oahu, died of cancer last month at the age of 64. Anderson, 31, was a longtime aide to Marshall. The city will conduct a mail-in special election to replace Marshall next month.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama embraced merit pay for teachers today in spelling out a vision of education that will almost certainly alienate union backers. A strategy that ties teacher pay to student performance has for years been anathema to teachers' unions, a powerful force in the Democratic Party. These unions also are wary of charter schools, nontraditional educational systems that they believe compete with traditional schools for tax dollars. Obama, however, also spoke favorably of charter schools, saying that where they work, they should be encouraged.

(Don't be fooled, his model is The Chicago Annenberg Challenge with ex-terrorist Bill Ayers and Communist Party (M-L) leader Mike Klonsky, of course working to brainwash the children with political correctness. Is it that Teachers' Unions are not efficient-enough propagandists and can now be jettisoned after having done so much fine work on behalf of the Democrats? Or maybe they will follow the Ayers-Klonsky-Obama lead....)

(Here's the answer...) "Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, said the union would 'embrace the goals and aspirations outlined today by President Obama.'"